Her Girls
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Meg Giry confronts her mother about letting the Phantom haunt Christine for so long.


Her Girls

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _The Phantom of the Opera (2004)_

Copyright: Andrew Llyod Webber/Really Useful Productions

"You knew about this?"

Meg marched into her mother's room. Changed out of her _Il Muto_ costume and into her plain white nightgown, her hair loose, she could have looked like a little girl if not for the accusing look in her eyes.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?"

"Maman, I'm asking you – did you know it was the Phantom who's been teaching Christine all those years? And you – you've been taking messages for him, repeating his threats, helping him keep the entire Opera House under his control! And what about Christine? Do you have any idea what he's doing to her? He's been masquerading as her dead father's ghost, for God's sake, and she believes him!"

"Yes." Antoinette tried to speak steadily, but her voice trembled. "I knew."

"How could you let this happen?" Meg paced the room like a small golden lioness. "Why didn't you protect us?"

"My child, I have been asking myself that all night."

Something about her mother's voice gave Meg pause. Instead of continuing in her angry strain, she dropped into the nearest chair, the terror and exhaustion of the night finally catching up to her. Like Antoinette, she was probably seeing Joseph Bouquet's corpse every time she closed her eyes. She'd never liked the stagehand – he'd been a drunken fool who talked about the Phantom as if he were a children's campfire story – but he had still been a human being and their co-worker, and murder was still a sin.

"He's never killed anyone before," the older woman said, thinking aloud. "He always used to play tricks, but never anything dangerous. At least, nothing that I know of. My God, when did he become like this?"

"You know him well?" Meg's small, confused voice was almost worse than a shout.

"I thought I did."

She told the story in a few brief, reluctant words: how she had seen him being exhibited at a freak show, how he had killed his cruel master in self-defense and she had helped him escape from the police, how she had kept him hidden in the underground passages of the opera house ever since, bringing him food, teaching him to read, watching him grow into the genius he was meant to be.

The Phantom had protected her in return. As a young ballerina, she had often augmented her low wages by taking a wealthy lover. But when one of them got her pregnant, and then left her, the managers of the opera would have thrown her out into the street if not for the Phantom's creative threats. He had used his "salary" to pay for her medical care, and later to pay a nurse for baby Meg so that Antoinette could continue to work. Her fellow dancers had never looked at her the same way since, but they respected her, and she and Meg had always felt safe.

Until now.

"I was so happy for him when he began to teach her," Antoinette confessed, leaning forward with her head in her hands. "It seemed to lift him up out of his own troubles, give him something good to occupy his mind. Even as she grew older, and it was clear his interest in her was not at all like a father's, I hoped it might turn out for the best. I thought that a woman who had been accustomed to him since childhood might be able to see past his scars. I thought she might save him."

Meg's eyes had gradually softened with understanding, but she still shook her head.

"But, Maman," she said, "Who will save _her_? She gets so melancholy sometimes. Spending her life with that man could drive her mad. There must be something we can do!"

Meg jumped up from her chair, looking ready to barge into the Phantom's lair and confront him single-handedly. The idea was enough to jolt Antoinette into action; she got up and blocked the door.

" _You_ will do nothing," she said, catching her daughter by the shoulders and looking her squarely in the eye. "I forbid it. I cannot lose you too."

"Maman … "

"As for Christine, have faith in her. She is stronger than she looks. I will do all in my power to protect her, but the final decision must be hers."

Meg gave a slow, reluctant nod as she stepped out of Antoinette hold. She might never completely trust her mother again, and no wonder, after so many years' worth of secrets and lies had been revealed.

Antoinette remembered the Phantom as a child. She remembered dancing to the first song he had written, holding him when he cried, helping him pull pranks on her tyrant of a ballet mistress and playing hide-and-seek in all the secret corners of the building. She loved him like a brother, and there were very few things she would not do for him, including breaking the law.

Putting her girls in danger, however, was at the top of that list.

Meg was right. Christine was prone to melancholy. She needed an ordinary man with humor and common sense, who would bring her out into the sunlight, not drag her deeper into darkness. She would wither in that underground cave.

He would not have her. Antoinette would make certain of it.

Having the Vicomte de Chagny on her side would undoubtedly help.


End file.
